This Wild '90s Sci-fi Movie Was Based On A William Gibson Short Story

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Fans of '90s indie movies might remember Abel Ferrara's 1998 sci-fi thriller "New Rose Hotel" with a wisp of nostalgia. Ferrara had been making movies since the 1970s, first gaining notice for his 1976 slasher "The Driller Killer." He then exploded in the cult scene with the release of his 1981 revenge film "Ms. 45" and was highly respected for his ability to push the envelope. From there, he delivered a run of beloved films in the 1990s, including the crime flick "King of New York," the over-the-edge "Bad Lieutenant" (which Ferrara and Werner Herzog once fought over), the sci-fi retelling "Body Snatchers," the Madonna/Harvey Keitel vehicle "Dangerous Game," the vampire picture "The Addiction," and the crime flick "The Funeral." Ferrara was riding high.

This brings us to "New Rose Hotel," an adaptation of the 1984 William Gibson short story (itself first published in Omni Magazine) starring Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento. In Gibson's story, the world has been overtaken by giant megacorporations that rule the global economy and are protective of their intellectual properties, especially the artists they employ. Technology has evolved too quickly for any one company to have an advantage over another, so the only valuable assets are the people. Hence, these corporations aspire to poach artists. (Speaking of corporate art, remember when Gibson wrote a script draft for "Alien 3?")

Ferrara's take on "New Rose Hotel" follows three freelance poachers tasked by their Japanese bosses with poaching an artist from a German company. Its plot involves intrigue, defections, a catastrophic virus, and a final scene in the titular hotel. The movie is a noir version of Gibson's story, but it's also more sci-fi in its production design than anything else (and its cast is excellent).

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Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe star in "New Rose Hotel" as Fox and the film's narrator "X," respectively. The pair are tasked with getting one Dr. Hiroshi (Yoshitaka Amano) to defect from his German company Maas and join Hosaka, a Japanese firm. So, the two go to Shinjuku and hire Sandii (Asia Argento), a local lounge singer, to act as a "honeypot" and seduce Dr. Hiroshi as a means of convincing him to leave his company. Complicating matters, Fox and X begin instructing and training Sandii, only for X to fall in love with her.

As the trio travels around the globe, Sandii and X grow closer and closer, although it seems clear that Sandii is up to no good. She keeps lying about her past, for instance. Meanwhile, X dreams of ending the job and running away with Sandii to marry her, which is a pretty clear sign — in any film noir — that things will end badly for at least one of them. Like in William Gibson's short story, X eventually winds up at the titular hotel in a not-so-great state of mind. Anabella Sciorra, Gretchen Mol, and John Lurie (star of "Fishing with John") play supporting roles. 

"New Rose Hotel" got a very limited theatrical release, so one would be forgiven for assuming it skipped theaters entirely. It was commonly on the shelves at your local mom-and-pop rental outlets and barely made a blip at the box office. As such, the film marked the end of Abel Ferrara's 1990s heyday, and his output slowed thereafter.

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On top of being a low-profile box office bomb, "New Rose Hotel" didn't exactly wow critics. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas called the film "elliptical and stylized to the max" and felt that its "plot counts for little." However, Thomas also noted that the story seemingly wasn't the thing that got Abel Ferrara's attention: 

"[W]hat interests Ferrera is to draw from [Willem] Dafoe and [Christopher] Walken portraits of middle-aged angst in a bleak near-future in which government and the corporate universe are virtually one — and totally corrupt. Dafoe's X is a sensualist longing for love and substance; Walken's Fox wants only to continue with his grandiose schemes of corporate/industrial espionage, for they are his only defense against old age and loneliness."

So, something is going on in "New Rose Hotel," the literal plot be damned. Indeed, Asia Argento even directed a 33-minute documentary short about the making of the movie called "Abel/Asia," and it can be found easily enough online (although it's more of a collection of behind-the-scenes footage than a proper documentary).

As for Ferrera, his next movie after "New Rose Hotel," 2001's "'R Xmas," was largely ignored, and all his films since 2005 have been low-profile indie dramas, some of which are excellent. Willem Dafoe is especially good in Ferrera's 2019 semi-autobiography "Tommaso," and the filmmaker's most recent feature, the 2022 drama "Padre Pio," starred Shia LeBoeuf as a monk who gets the stigmata. One might recall seeing Ferrara play a beleaguered, dog-loving gangster in the critical darling "Marty Supreme" as well.